


Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Assignment

by eotu



Category: I Spy (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eotu/pseuds/eotu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened between the last scene and the tag of the third season episode <i>The Seventh Captain</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Assignment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Arduinna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arduinna/gifts).



> Thank you so much to my beta reader for all her help in turning this into what I wanted it to be.

Scotty got in the boat, like Kelly told him to. He was very clumsy, but it looked to Kelly like he was getting the hang of his arms and legs again. Scotty had to be practically dragged up the steps to the temple before, so even this Frankenstein shuffle was an improvement. Kelly guessed that the drugs Zarkas used only had to last long enough to keep a victim still until he was covered in cement. It gave Kelly the heebie-jeebies to think about that happening to Scotty, so he stopped thinking about it and concentrated on getting them out of there.

Kelly aimed the boat towards Rhodos and gunned the engine. He had to keep a sharp eye ahead for rocks, as well as watch behind for pursuers, and his divided attention left him little time for his partner. It didn't matter, though. Scotty just sat like a sack of potatoes in the stern seat, watching their wake.

Scotty grunted suddenly, so low it almost didn't carry over the engine. Kelly heard it and turned in time to see Scotty try unsuccessfully to raise an arm. Kelly looked past his partner to a light on the water. There they were. So much for leaving Zarkas' men in complete confusion.

“We'll outrun 'em.” Kelly reassured Scotty, goosing the throttle.

“Nuh!” Scotty obviously disagreed. Kelly considered: outnumbered, on a boat with nowhere to run, and Scotty unable to move? Okay, bad idea.

“Yeah, maybe you're right.” Kelly doused their light, dropped the engine speed to a crawl and headed toward the rocky shore. There were plenty of coves and inlets to hide in, and all they had to do was tuck into one and wait for sunrise.

Easier said than done in the dark, and in the end Kelly had to climb onto the rocks and walk the boat along the shoreline until a suitable inlet appeared.

\------

With their engine off, they could hear the approaching boat. Its light swept from side to side along the shoreline, and they got as low as they could in their dinghy, practically lying down to keep from being visible behind the rocks.

The searchers passed slowly but kept on steadily up the coastline, and soon there was no sound but the quiet lapping of the sea against the rocks and their boat.

Kelly sighed deeply as he stretched out, folding his arms beneath his tipped back head. He carefully didn't watch Scotty pull himself awkwardly onto the cushioned bow seat.

“How's it going over there, Boris?”

Scotty just grunted.

Kelly wasn't used to a quiet Scotty. The drugs certainly played a part, but he couldn't tell at all what was going behind his partner's baleful stare. If it were Kelly, he'd be pretty damned mad at Zarkas, first for lying through his teeth when he denied knowing what had happened to Gronow and the other communist agents, and second for trying to add a Scotty-filled statue to the underwater sculpture garden. As far as Kelly was concerned, tossing Zarkas over the cliff was completely justified.

With Scotty, however, it could be anything. He could just be shaking off whatever they gave him, he could be mad at Zarkas for trying to kill him twice, or he could even be mad at himself for not figuring it out sooner. Zarkas even gave them hints, but what sane person thinks “ancient Greek murder ritual” when someone says “lodge?” Fraternal Order of Elks this wasn't!

Whatever was going on with Scotty, Kelly would just have to wait it out.

They sat in silence for a while. Scotty periodically moved an arm or a leg, testing his control. Soon he was moving with purpose, swiping at the cement still caking his chest and shoulders.

Kelly shifted closer. “You want some help getting that off?” He reached toward Scotty's shoulder.

“Nuh!” Scotty batted Kelly's hand away sharply.

Kelly raised both hands and backed off to sit at his end of the boat again. Since when did Scotty reject his touch? Just this morning they were breathing from the same SCUBA tank. Scotty had leaned on Kelly all the way from the dock to their room to spare his burnt ankle.

From the safety of distance he said, “You could get in the water and wash it off.”

Scotty shuddered visibly. “Sha-uh,” he said, scratching a chunk of cement off his shoulder.

“Hate to break it to you, pal, but the nearest hot water is about five miles that-a-way,” Kelly waved his hand toward Rhodos, “and we're not due there 'til broad daylight.”

Scotty's shoulders slumped and he glared at Kelly, then went back to picking at the rocky crust on his skin. They sat a while longer.

With no warning, Scotty clumsily pushed himself to his feet, making the small boat rock precariously. Kelly grabbed on to the gunwale to keep from rolling off his seat into the water.

“Hey!”

Scotty had both hands on the edge, and was stepping out of the boat.

“Hey!” Kelly repeated. “Hey, wait!”

Scotty faced Kelly from the rocky shore. “Room,” he gestured roughly toward town. “Shower.” Scotty was enunciating now, but obviously still working at saying things right.

“Can't you wait it out? You'll break your neck climbing the rocks in the dark.”

“Move!” Scotty insisted. Kelly could understand that. Being immobilized against his will drove Kelly crazy. He always needed to run it off when something like that happened. Looks like Scotty had the same reaction. But those rocks could be deadly, and Scotty's luck wasn't so great this assignment.

“Yeah, Okay.” Kelly started to get out of the boat, too.

“Not you.”

“Uh-uh. Someone's gotta keep you from killing yourself.”

“Don't need baby sitter!”

_Yeah, you do, _Kelly thought, but out loud he only said, “Humor me.”

Scotty shrugged jerkily then turned and started to clamber inland over the rocks.

“Good thing I paid for the boat in advance,” Kelly muttered as he followed his partner.

\------

Scotty climbed doggedly, using his arms when things got steep. He bashed his burnt ankle a couple of times, but only grunted and kept on.

Kelly followed.

They made it to the top in less than an hour. The lights of Rhodos were visible on the horizon and the coast road gleamed in the moonlight. Kelly paused at the top to rest, but Scotty just kept on, stumbling down the slope toward the road.

“Would you just stop a second?”

Scotty looked back at Kelly, his face hard. Then he turned and kept going.

Kelly scrambled faster until he could grab Scotty's arm. “No, really. Stop. What's got into you, man?”

Scotty shook him off roughly, but stopped.

“Enough with the silent treatment. I know the stuff's worn off. Talk.”

Scotty began to pace. Kelly leaned against a rock and waited.

“They were luring them on purpose.”

“What?”

“Zarkas. Luring communist agents to the island to kill them.”

“Like the man said, good riddance.”

“No. You see, he put together this whole thing so that he could kill communist agents in revenge for that mayor who was murdered. Seven for one. It was all his idea.”

“It's an ugly business. You know that.”

“This wasn't business. This was some island secret mystery mumbo-jumbo. He wanted me to join, you know.”

“His sexy lodge?”

“Yeah. Offered to initiate me.”

“And you said no. You knew the other choice was that he'd kill you, right? What am I saying? Of course you turned him down.”

“What else could I do?”

“Play along. Said yes. I don't know.” Kelly would have said yes without hesitating.

“Maybe. Maybe I should have joined up. But...”

That right there was the difference between them. Scotty still had some scruples, and they came out at the worst times. Kelly never worried about Scotty's sense of right when it was Kelly's life on the line, but when it was Scotty's? His partner would throw away his own life on an ideal someday, and then Kelly would be left alone to curse the dark. But that was someday, and today Kelly just had get Scotty through this and out the other side.

“...but you just couldn't do it,” Kelly finished for him, gently.

“They're just guys, Kel. Doing their job. Yeah, they're the enemy, and if we have to kill 'em, we do, because it's our job. But covered in up cement and dumped in the ocean?” Scotty shuddered. “We don't – the Department doesn't do things that way.”

“Only because they can't get away with it. Matter of fact. I'll probably get in trouble for saving you and killing Zarkas, 'cause he was doing exactly what they want all our allies to do.”

“Kill the baddies...”

“...so they don't have to.”

Scotty shook his head. “True, man. So true.”

Scotty leaned against a nearby tree and fell silent. He had that look about him, the one he got when he was considering whether it was worth it to keep on doing this work. Kelly saw it now and again, mostly when the Department assigned them something in the darker part of the gray area.

This time it wasn't the Department's fault. They'd come slam bang up against the wickedness of man, and Kelly couldn't tell if that made it easier or harder. He didn't think Scotty would take it personally that he himself had been a target not one but three times, but this last attack, when Scotty had almost ended up in an undersea sculpture garden, might be the last straw.

It seemed like it took forever. The birds were starting to peep in the bushes when finally Scotty gave one of those all-over “somebody's walking on my grave.” shudders, then looked down the road toward the lights. “How far did you say 'til I get my hot shower?”

“Five miles.”

Scotty pushed himself off the tree. “Let's get going,” he said, heading down the road, limping slightly.

“Your ankle gonna take it?”

“You just leave my ankle be,” Scotty replied testily.

“Is that what happened? Your ankle was why ol' Zark and his buddies caught you? Last I saw, you and your goat's milk were enjoying the dancing with the other tourists. Then suddenly you're being fitted with full-body cement overshoes.”

Scotty glared.

“OK, OK. Story for another time. I'll let you make it up to me, though. You can write the report. If they fire you for incompetence, you can use it to make your fortune as a novelist.”

“Ha ha.”

“No, really,” Kelly said. “It's got everything. Murder, ancient Greek cults, dancing girls. All you need is a dashing hero and a damsel in distress.”

“And that'd be you, right?”

“Of course I'm the dashing hero.”

“Actually, I thought I'd make you the damsel.”

Kelly grinned. Scotty was back, and that was just fine with Kelly.

 


End file.
